Regulation of cellular morphology using temperature-responsive hydrogel for integrin-mediated mechanical force stimulation.

A new culture substrate was developed for cells to be equibiaxially stretched using fibronectin (Fn)-immobilized temperature-responsive hydrogel. The cells cultured on the gel substrate were equibiaxially stretched with swelling of the gel, which was accompanied by slight changes of temperature. During gel swelling, changes of cell shape were clearly observed by optical microscopy because of high transparency of the gel. ERK was highly and transiently activated by mechanical stimulation whereas focal adhesion kinase (FAK) was not, indicating that mechanical signals were transduced into biochemical signals in cells. We found that cells formed filopodia-like structures in response to mechanical cues, suggesting that mechanical forces facilitated actin polymerization at the peripheral region. In the cytoplasm, paxillin-containing fibrous structures were formed along actin fibers. These results indicate that we can perform both analysis of intracellular signal transduction and observation of cell shapes at high magnification in our method.